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Some Aspects Of The Structure Of The Phaethon Episode In Ovid's Metamorphoses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. C. Bass
R. C. Bass
Affiliation:
King's College Junior School, Taunton
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Extract

Although scholars have expended increasing efforts over the last twenty years or so in either detecting or establishing large structural and thematic units within Ovid's perpetuum carmen, little attention, as far as I am aware, has been directed towards the evident care taken by Ovid in his arrangement of material within individual episodes, and the resultant over-all structure of those episodes. The aim of the present paper is to focus attention upon a single episode to which Ovid seems to have paid particular attention in these respects. I refer to the long story of Phaethon, which occupies the last part of book 1, and most of the first half of book 2, of the Metamorphoses, and intend to explore two different lines of approach in examining the structure of this episode.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , December 1977 , pp. 402 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1977

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References

page 402 note 1 Notably byWilkinson, L. P., Ovid Recalled (Cambridge, 1955), pp.147–8;Google ScholarOtis, B.,Ovid as anEpic Poet 2 (Cambridge, 1970), pp.83–5,Google Scholar 93, 129, 168, 278; cf. Ludwig, W., Struktur and Einheit der Metamorphosen Ovids (Berlin, 1965).Google ScholarObjections to the kinds of analyses suggested by Wilkinson and Otis in particular are made by Coleman, R., ‘Structure and Intention in the Metamorphoses', CQ N.S. 21 (1971), 461–77,CrossRefGoogle Scholar esp. 464 n.3 (the above works of Wilkinson, Otis, and Coleman are hereafter cited by author's name simpliciter). Cf. Galinsky, G. K., Ovid's Metamorphoses, An Introduction to the Basic Aspects (Oxford, 1975), pp.79 f.Google Scholar Suffice it here to say that it is by no means agreed that ‘there are four unmistakable divisions or sections of the work’, as Otis (p.83) asserts (my italics).

page 402 note 2 But see esp. the Pars Prior of Peters, H., Symbola ad Ovidii Artem Epicam Cognoscendam (Diss. Gottingen, 1908).Google Scholar

page 402 note 3 This tenuous link with the preceding lo episode, no doubt contrived by Ovid, is perhaps not the only connection between the Phaethon episode and those stories related earlier in book 1. See Coleman, p. 466, ‘… the narrative joins are less important structurally than the thematic relationships between individual tales … a strong thematic link … is provided by the prominence of Apollo’. For the principle cf. Otis, p.xii, but against the equation of Apollo with the Sun-god tacitly made by Coleman see the convincing arguments, with full documentation, of Fontenrose, J. E., AJPh 61 (1940), 429–44, esp. 433, 436, 440.Google Scholar

page 402 note 4 Rohde, A., De Ovidi arte epica capita duo (Diss. Berlin, 1929), p.10.Google Scholar

page 402 note 5 Naso, P. Ovidius, Metamorphosen: Kommentar von F. BOmer. Buch I-III (Heidelberg, 1969), p.222.Google Scholar

page 402 note 6 My italics in both citations. I am being unfair to Bomer in quoting an isolated sentence out of context, especially since he gives (p.223) a tabulated synopsis of the entire story, plus appendages, from 1.747 to 2.400. However, such a view of the episode's structure is, I believe, misleading.

page 403 note 1 Cf. Lafaye, G., Les Métamorphoses D'Ovide et leurs modéles grecs (Paris, 1904), p.82 n.3;Google ScholarFrecaut, J. M., RAT 46 (1968), 253 n.3.Google Scholar

page 403 note 2 The device of bridging books by the continuation of a story is of course employed elsewhere. See Lafaye, ibid; Coleman, p.471.

page 403 note 3 Rohde, op. cit., pp.11 f.

page 403 note 4 On this feature cf. Segal, C. P., Landscape in Ovid's Metamorphoses. A Study in the Transformations of a Literary Symbol, Hermes Einzelschriften 23 (Wiesbaden, 1969), p.7.Google Scholar

page 403 note 5 See TLL s.v. I.3.a.a (‘generatim de fulmine, igni, aliis rebus nitidis’). The figure is continued and strengthened by the heavily ironical ‘flagratque cupidine currus’ (2.104). There is a similar play on emicat at Virg. Aen. 6.5, on which see the note of Serv. Dan. ad loc. and Quinn, K., Virgil's Aeneid, A Critical Description (London, 1968), p.161.Google Scholar

page 403 note 6 e.g. Virg. Aen. 4.474, 502; of something catching fire see e.g. Caes. B.C. 2.14.2, and, figuratively, Ov. Met. 7.17, 9.520; Cat. 64.92. See further OLD s.v. lb, 8a, and TLL.

page 404 note 1 In the recent work of Galinsky (above, p.402, n.1) it seems ex silentio that he also attaches no significance to this ekphrasis (pp.97, 221). Frankel, H., however, Ovid, A Poet between Two Worlds (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1945), p.86, does attach some significance to these linesGoogle Scholar

page 404 note 2 On this see Frankel, op. cit., p.86; Bartholom´, H., Ovid and die antike Kunst (Diss. Munster, 1935), p.75Google Scholar (cited Wilkinson, p.156). The seemingly facile and redundant addition of ‘quod inminet orbi’ (describing the sky) at 2.7 is a further anticipation of later events, since we can take inminet in its more sinister sense of ‘threatening’

page 404 note 3 Cf. the references to the fishes, 2.13 and 265–6.

page 404 note 4 The connection between the twopassages was tacitly made by Sen. Ep. 115.13, citing lines 1–2 and 107–8. Both the reliefs on the Sun's palace and the chariot were the handiwork of Vulcan (= Mulciber, 5)-Vulcania munera, 106.

page 404 note page 404 note 5 Cf. Kenney, E. J. in Binns, J. W. (ed.), Ovid (London, 1973), p.140:Google Scholar ‘Not all Ovid's descriptions, of course, are symbolic, but very few if any are otiose.’

page 404 note 6 Otis, pp.112--13, 393.

page 404 note 7 It is noteworthy that 61 and 82, both premonitory, are also memorable Golden Lines.

page 404 note 8 Similarly, Phaethon's reactions as he looks down from the highest point of his orbit (2.178 f.) are the same as those which the Sun, in this speech, says that he experiences in the same situation (2.64 f.).

page 405 note 1 I can detect no apparent or plausible subdivisions within this section, which is one of chaos as Ovid directs the reader's attention alternately to Phaethon and to the distress for which he is responsible: the subjects of these lines are constantly changing. Cf. Otis, p.113; Kenney, op. cit., p.142.

page 405 note 2 After he has done so, the thunderbolt's effects upon the horses of the Sun are described (314–18)-here again the reader's interest in Phaethon is aroused and then suspended.

page 405 note 3 312–13, ‘pariterque animaque rotisque/expulit’. Cf. Galinsky, , op. cit., p.143Google Scholar with n.37 and refs.; p.248. The differentiation between syllepsis and zeugma is a bee which buzzes in Kenney's, E. J. bonnet. See e.g. CR N.S. 22 (1972), 40;Google Scholaribid. 25 (1975), 34; cf. his note on Lucr. 3. 614 (Cambridge, 1971).

page 405 note 4 ignibus ignes (313). See Bömerad loc. and on 3.95; Met. 2.280–1, 15.175 and esp. 15.88 f.; Frecaut, J. M., L'Esprit et l'humour chez Ovide (Grenoble, 1972), p.53Google Scholar and n.105. The device was employed to suggest violent confrontation in epic: Enn. Ann. 572 V; Furius Bibaculus ap. Macr. Sat. 6.3.5 (fr. 10 Morel); Claud. Quad. ap. Aul. Gell. 9.13.16 (fr. 10b Peter); Virg, . Aen. 10.375–6, 11.615 (cf. Met. 6.243), 12.748, and Pease on 4.83; Luc. 1.6–7, 7.573; Stat. Tbeb. 8.399; Sil. 9.324–5.Google Scholar

page 406 note 1 For other examples of similar arrangement of motifs see e.g. Wilkinson, L. P., Tbe Georgics of Virgil (Cambridge, 1969), pp.327 f.Google Scholar

page 406 note 2 It is surely no coincidence that at 2.19 Phaethon is referred to by the matronymic Clymeneia proles-at least the identity of his mother is not in doubt.

page 406 note 3 Wilkinson, L. P., CQ 36 (1942), 124,Google Scholar has expressed surprise that Phaethon's fall is summarily dealt with by Ovid in four unspectacular lines (2.319–22), but should we expect a longer, more spectacular description of Phaethon's death at the end of this episode? I believe we should not. In the A eneid the death of Turnus is allotted only three lines (12.950–2), and here, as in Virgil's epic, it is not the actual death itself, but the circumstances of the death, which are of prior importance (a tenet which denies any significance to the amount of text which the motif occupies, spectacularly or not).

page 406 note 4 Galinsky, op. cit., p.135, believes that the ‘excessive’ grief of Phaethon's family is ‘too overdone to be touching.’ Be that as it may, the relevance of his reference to lines 239–62 at this point is his discussion eludes me.

page 407 note 1 Cf. Met. 2.151–2, ‘… manibusque datas contingere habenas/gaudet …’, and Aen. 2.239, ‘sacra canunt funemque manu contingere gaudent’. The irony of Phaethon's joy and the contrasting emotions of the Sun. were further stressed by the juxtaposition of the participles at Stat. Tbeb. 6.322, ‘gaudentem lacrimans astra insidiosa docebat’. Cf.Vessey, D., Statius and the Tbebaid (Cambridge, 1973), pp.212 f.Google Scholar

page 408 note 1 There are no earlier references in the Phaethon story to either the Heliades or Cycnus.

page 408 note 2 See Otis, p.81. Cf. Galinsky, op. cit., pp.3 f., 49; Coleman, p.463; Wilkinson, p.145.

page 408 note 3 Peters, op. cit., Praemonenda vii.

page 408 note 4 Rohde, op. cit., p.28.

page 408 note 5 I am most grateful both to Mr. E. A. Slade for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to the anonymous referee for his constructive criticisms and valuable improvements. For the faults that remain 1, alas, am solely responsible.